Hey,

Every so often you'll see a rogue deck do well in tournaments. Conley Woods did it a few weeks ago with a deck he calls "The Bant Wagon". From that point forward, Stoneforge Mystic has had a steady increase in popularity across the board as an equipment tutor on a slim 1/2 body.

Will Ornithopter ever reach $7.00?  A guy can dream right?

Without further ado, here's a deck piloted by Antonio Castellini to 7th Place at San Juan PTQ. Source is DeckCheck.

**Important note:  At the time of writeup, the deck posted was missing two cards.  I put Stoneforge Mystics in their place, but after the deck was corrected, they became Venser, Shaper Savant.  In short, replace all Stoneforge Mystics in the list for download with Venser.

Lands

1 Adarkar Wastes
4 Hallowed Fountain
10 Island
4 Mutavault
1 Plains
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Glacial Fortress

Creatures
3 Mistblade Shinobi
4 Ninja of the Deep Hours
4 Ornithopter
4 Spellstutter Sprite
3 Vendilion Clique
4 Zephyr Sprite
2 Venser, Shaper Savant
2 Sower of Temptation

Spells
3 Echoing Truth
2 Familiar's Ruse
3 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Favor of the Mighty
1 Relic of Progenitus

Sideboard
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
2 Roil Elemental
1 Sower of Temptation
4 Negate
1 Favor of the Mighty
3 Pithing Needle
3 Relic of Progenitus

Try this deck out--DOWNLOAD the deck file for Magic Workstation

Ninjas and Fae. The one card splashed for that makes this deck stand out is:
Think about it.  The mightiest creature seeing play is the 20/20 BLACK Marit Lage token courtesy of Dark Depths/Vampire Hexmage decks.  All tokens have a CMC of 0-mana, meaning that any flying creature can block the token indefinitely AND be immune to removal, assuming that there isn't a Vampire Hexmage in play.  Also, an important ruling:

If there's a tie for highest converted mana cost, all of those creatures have protection from all colors.This effect is checked continuously. If a new creature enters the battlefield with the highest converted mana cost, it gains protection from all colors and the previous highest loses it.

That means that if an Ornithopter and a Lage token are the only creatures in play, then both creatures have the protection.

Considering that most of Extended is either token-based or cheap creature based, this is a good call.  The only thing I can think of that doesn't fall into the above categories is Hypergenesis (and you have counterspells for that).

Pairing this with fliers is awesome.  Pairing this with fliers and overcosted ninjas who can ninjutsu is even better.

Besides that, here are the reasons I see for some of the card choices:

• Mistblade Shinobi - Bounces a creature.  If you can get a t1 flier, you can go ninjutsu this out turn 2 to bounce their t1 play.  Works great if they go for a t1 Noble Hierarch.  Also good with Favor of the Mighty; push through unblocked to bounce a creature to their hands.
• Ninja of the Deep Hours - Good card draw with Favor out.
• Spellstutter Sprite - Great counterspell/creature when paired with faeries; even better when reusable courtesy of ninjutsu.
• Echoing Truth - General bounce + stops swarms of thopter tokens.
• Roil Elemental - Reusable creature theft.  For once, it's high casting cost is a benefit.

The deck manages to combine a team of proven contenders (Spellstutter Sprite, Umezawa's Jitte) and a team of nonames(Roil Elemental, Favor of the Mighty) into one powerful deck.  Here is what I see as good and bad in this deck:

Good:

•  Answers popular Extended decks such as Thepths, Zoo, and Scapeshift.
• Has a large number of creatures with flying for evasion.
• Relatively cheap.

Bad:

• Deck is pretty "meh" without Favor of the Mighty.
• Weenies don't have that much power without the Jitte.
• Slow to win--could cause opponent to come back in the game.

I want to hear from you.  Do you think this deck is a 1-hit wonder?  Or do you think this deck has potential?  Drop a comment off in the box below!

Till next time,
Follow me at www.twitter.com/shadowsketched

Hey,

An interesting tweet came up courtesy of @mtgaaron:

"Did you know Teferi's Moat/Propaganda don't protect planeswalkers? Should they?"


I did not know this.  Take a look at the exact wording on the cards:


Notice the similarity between the two cards. The word "you". "You" does not include any planeswalkers; it only affects you the player. Check out another example:

Ok, so if I play Runed Halo naming the fabulous 1/2 vanilla creature Squire, then I can't take damage from it.  However, the planeswalker will still be able to take damage from said Squire.

That leaves one burning question left; what about direct damage spells?  So far, spells can only damage creatures or players.  If a spell can't damage a player (such as being named by Runed Halo), then the spell can't damage a planeswalker.  Also note that life loss from cards such as Cruel Ultimatum will not affect a planeswalker; since a planeswalker has loyalty counters, life loss means nothing to it.

For more info, look at: Targeting Planeswalkers -- MTGTheSource Forums

Until next time,
www.twitter.com/shadowsketched

Hey,

For those of you who invested in a playset of Eye of Ugin when they were a $1.00, you are smart people.  Eye of Ugin has rose from roughly $1.00 to about $5.00, quintupling in price.  In case you don't know why, check out this bad boy (SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER):

• When you cast ~, draw 4 cards - Even if it's countered, you draw.  It's not a come-into-play ability, so you can't reanimate it or blink it to get more cards.
• Annihilator 4 - Note that this triggers like Nemesis of Reason, meaning that it only has to declare itself as an attacker to get the annihilator effect.  You can use this to potentially get rid of blockers.
• When ~ is put into a graveyard from anywhere, its owner shuffles his or her graveyard into his or her library - This is a triggered effect like Gaea's Blessing, not a replacement effect like Darksteel Colossus.  Instant-graveyard removal works, such as Extirpate and Tormod's Crypt, as well as instant reanimation like Makeshift Mannequin.

 Oh, and it's a 12/12, one off from the elusive 13/13 spot held by Krosan Cloudscraper and Death's Shadow.

Will it see play in competitive formats?

Too early to say.  Considering that Extended has super quick combos, I doubt it.  Standard is no slower or ruthless with Jund gaining ridiculous card advantage like in Yu-Gi-Oh games.  Again, this is only 1 card of a 248 card set, so there's at least 247 cards minus basic lands that could potentially make this card a viable threat.

How does this further hint at the future?

Going back to what I said about this being a 248 card set, notice that this is card 6 of 248.  Although the colorless nonartifact card has never been printed before (Walking Atlas, still debatable), this could mean that there are nothing but colorless cards afterwards.

This does not mean that colorless mana will be eliminated completely; rather, the colored mana cost will contribute to a card's effect like in Ghostfire.  The red in the mana cost supports the 3 "burn" damage of the card.

Should you go out and get some Eyes of Ugin?

I'd say yes.  Cards after Kozilek can only get either better or worse, and with 247 cards yet to be spoiled, there's a good chance that there's other good colorless Eldrazi spells.

In addition, the wording on Eye of Ugin does not limit the cost reduction to creatures, so with that information and the aforementioned 6/248 position, there's a good chance that tribal will return in the form of Eldrazi spells.

If you haven't picked up some Eyes and are planning to do so, check them out here: Buy Eye of Ugin

If you want more info about the Butcher of Truth, check out the following:

• The Secrets of the Eye, the original spoiler

• Mulldrifting's coverage

• David Leavitt's coverage

Until next time,
www.twitter.com/shadowsketched